CP 0 3 BHA
Well-known member
We are truly blessed having TB - and the contrast with what happens elsewhere is beautifully highlighted by this contribution to the Guardian comments section by a Birmingham fan:-
Dear Paul Suen, Zhao Wenqing, Huang Dongfeng, Daniel Sue Ka Lok, Anita Chan Yuk Yee, Jerry Yiu Chun Kong and Zhu Kai
Between you, you are the executive directors and key shareholders of Birmingham International Holdings Limited and Trillion Trophy Asia Limited, the holding companies for Blues.
I doubt you were at today's match - bit of a shlep from Honkers - but had you been, you would have seen the manager you sacked mastermind a win over the manager you brought in his stead.
That result means that the manager you sacked has won more matches in ten days than the manager you brought in has won in five months.
Doubtless you will get reports back as to how it went. And I can imagine them. Blues were unlucky. One down to a fluke, a perfectly good goal disallowed by a set of officials that between them were as fair and unbiased as a vampire in a Villa scarf, and hit by a sucker punch at the end because everyone was up for a free-kick.
That's all fair enough; we did not get the run of the ball today. But that's today. That's not the last 23 matches, half a season, of which we have won precisely two. And one of those was against ten men. At home.
I know that the Chinese culture is one where one does not want 端面， I.e. to lose face. And you thought you had lost face because Rowett was looking for other jobs. Well, that's what happens in football. A manager is six bad games from the sack and they will look for more money and security. Especially as Rowett's contract was for peanuts. The manager up the road was earning eight times as much as him, apparently, for doing a significantly worse job with significantly more resources.
But how much face do you want to lose? Do you want to relegate a team that at Christmas was pushing for promotion? Do you want to swap playing Newcastle and Villa and Leeds et al for playing Fleetwood and Bury and Southend? And that's not guaranteed, by the way, Fleetwood might go up. Oh, yes, and that's the Bury who employ Lee Clark, who was the unchallenged worst manager ever for Birmingham City until you made your wonderful appointment of Gianfranco Zola, who, statistically, is. if not the worst manager in the history of the League to have has 20 games in charge, pretty damn close to it. To put that into context, the worst in the Sky era in the top flight is Roy McFarland at Bolton, and he was sacked after 2 wins in 22. And Clark never, ever, ever had a run as bad as 2 wins in 23.
As you are evidently not football people, I am not sure how best I can put that all into context. I think the best I can do is look at the Winter Olympics. At the last Games, China came 12th in the medal table, with 3 golds, 4 silvers and 2 bronzes. That was 2 places lower than Blues finished last season.
So imagine there was one Chinese coach, and in the first half of the next Games, he had China in sixth in the table. With, say, 5 golds, 5 silvers and 5 bronzes. But Austria and Italy were looking to recruit him as a coach because he was so valued. What do you do? Do you perhaps offer more money to your excellent coach, or do you sack him, and replace him with a coach whose last job was with the Qatar Winter Olympics team, and leave him in charge as he wins no golds, no silvers and no bronzes for the entire rest of the Games?
That's not an exact equivalent, as you can't get relegated out of the Winters into the Autumns. But imagine if you could. Imagine if you needed to win six golds or you were out. Your brilliant coach had got five, a sixth would be a piece of cake. But the new coach decides to buy in expensive new skis and gives them to the bobsleigh team. And decides that one of your most creative figure skaters is no good and instead lend him to Taiwan, for whom he then wins a gold (David Cotterill, our best dead baller, is on loan at Bristol City, while we rely on Craig Gardner's unerring ability to find the nearest opposition head. Or row G, which was how we lost today, incidentally.)
Would you not think that perhaps you had dropped a clanger in changing the coach? And that perhaps you ought to get a new one in sharpish before it all went completely the shape of the pear?
Or would you resolutely stick to your idiotic decision and sink with the Titanic? Because if we don't go down this season, then next season we will make Rotherham look like Celtic.
Dear Paul Suen, Zhao Wenqing, Huang Dongfeng, Daniel Sue Ka Lok, Anita Chan Yuk Yee, Jerry Yiu Chun Kong and Zhu Kai
Between you, you are the executive directors and key shareholders of Birmingham International Holdings Limited and Trillion Trophy Asia Limited, the holding companies for Blues.
I doubt you were at today's match - bit of a shlep from Honkers - but had you been, you would have seen the manager you sacked mastermind a win over the manager you brought in his stead.
That result means that the manager you sacked has won more matches in ten days than the manager you brought in has won in five months.
Doubtless you will get reports back as to how it went. And I can imagine them. Blues were unlucky. One down to a fluke, a perfectly good goal disallowed by a set of officials that between them were as fair and unbiased as a vampire in a Villa scarf, and hit by a sucker punch at the end because everyone was up for a free-kick.
That's all fair enough; we did not get the run of the ball today. But that's today. That's not the last 23 matches, half a season, of which we have won precisely two. And one of those was against ten men. At home.
I know that the Chinese culture is one where one does not want 端面， I.e. to lose face. And you thought you had lost face because Rowett was looking for other jobs. Well, that's what happens in football. A manager is six bad games from the sack and they will look for more money and security. Especially as Rowett's contract was for peanuts. The manager up the road was earning eight times as much as him, apparently, for doing a significantly worse job with significantly more resources.
But how much face do you want to lose? Do you want to relegate a team that at Christmas was pushing for promotion? Do you want to swap playing Newcastle and Villa and Leeds et al for playing Fleetwood and Bury and Southend? And that's not guaranteed, by the way, Fleetwood might go up. Oh, yes, and that's the Bury who employ Lee Clark, who was the unchallenged worst manager ever for Birmingham City until you made your wonderful appointment of Gianfranco Zola, who, statistically, is. if not the worst manager in the history of the League to have has 20 games in charge, pretty damn close to it. To put that into context, the worst in the Sky era in the top flight is Roy McFarland at Bolton, and he was sacked after 2 wins in 22. And Clark never, ever, ever had a run as bad as 2 wins in 23.
As you are evidently not football people, I am not sure how best I can put that all into context. I think the best I can do is look at the Winter Olympics. At the last Games, China came 12th in the medal table, with 3 golds, 4 silvers and 2 bronzes. That was 2 places lower than Blues finished last season.
So imagine there was one Chinese coach, and in the first half of the next Games, he had China in sixth in the table. With, say, 5 golds, 5 silvers and 5 bronzes. But Austria and Italy were looking to recruit him as a coach because he was so valued. What do you do? Do you perhaps offer more money to your excellent coach, or do you sack him, and replace him with a coach whose last job was with the Qatar Winter Olympics team, and leave him in charge as he wins no golds, no silvers and no bronzes for the entire rest of the Games?
That's not an exact equivalent, as you can't get relegated out of the Winters into the Autumns. But imagine if you could. Imagine if you needed to win six golds or you were out. Your brilliant coach had got five, a sixth would be a piece of cake. But the new coach decides to buy in expensive new skis and gives them to the bobsleigh team. And decides that one of your most creative figure skaters is no good and instead lend him to Taiwan, for whom he then wins a gold (David Cotterill, our best dead baller, is on loan at Bristol City, while we rely on Craig Gardner's unerring ability to find the nearest opposition head. Or row G, which was how we lost today, incidentally.)
Would you not think that perhaps you had dropped a clanger in changing the coach? And that perhaps you ought to get a new one in sharpish before it all went completely the shape of the pear?
Or would you resolutely stick to your idiotic decision and sink with the Titanic? Because if we don't go down this season, then next season we will make Rotherham look like Celtic.
